


this is not a party (it's a hurricane)

by tinyheadspace



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Drunkenness, F/F, Friends With Benefits Chacie, Light Angst, One Shot, Pre-Relationship Bechloe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-28
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2018-05-03 18:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5302589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinyheadspace/pseuds/tinyheadspace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Beca finally accepts her feelings for Chloe, she learns the hard way that Chloe has been hooking up with Stacie. For months.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is not a party (it's a hurricane)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "This Is Not a Party" by The Wombats.
> 
> Confession time: Chacie is my shameless PP crack ship. And I kept feeling like the PP fandom was lacking in the Chacie department, but Bechloe is 100% my main ship, so I mashed the two into one fic and don't quite know what I ended up with. Maybe you can tell me. Hope y'all enjoy!

* * *

 

Whoever that Murphy guy is, he can take his god-forsaken law and shove it. Hard. Beca Mitchell is _not_ a fan.

Because _of course_ when she finally comes around to accepting that her not-so-friendly feelings toward Chloe **are okay** , the absolute worst would happen.

Which would be finding out that Chloe has been hooking up with Stacie. For _months_.

Beca wants to believe what she just encountered downstairs was a fluke, a figment of an emotionally exhausted subconscious. But she knows her elevated pulse and trembling hands have nothing to do with the few sips of coffee she just took.

She slams her travel mug down onto her nightstand in frustration, the sloshing liquid inside a mocking impression of her own inner turmoil.

Plopping onto her bed and throwing her head back onto her pillow in aggravation, Beca realizes she probably should have seen it coming.

The signs had been there all along.

* * *

One of the first could be traced back to the night after they returned from the retreat. The Bellas, wanting to extend the high of rediscovering their sound, decided a booze-fueled celebration was in order. No longer sniping and griping with one another, the whole house settled in for a drunken evening of Barden Bella Game Night in the living room.

A tipsy game of Cards Against Humanity _(“Seriously, Lilly, how do you always win?” “I was cryogenically frozen for five months.” “Never mind.”)_ eventually gave way to an ill-advised Heads Up! chugging competition _(“Ladies, we are officially out of beer. Looks like we’ll have to keep playing with tequila!” “Chloe, NO. We can’t do a one second tequila chug for every right answer, we would, like, actually die.” “Fine. Then for each right answer the player gets to choose who takes a shot. I’ll go first.”)_.

And once the sloppy gesticulating of what was supposed to be Charades resulted in Fat Amy upending the smaller of the two couches _(“Ooh ooh I got it, it’s ‘homewrecker’!” “Dude, are you seri--” “DINGO! We have a winner!” “‘Bingo’, Amy, it’s ‘bingo’.” “Hold up, y’all are actually surprised it was Stacie who figured it out? Damn.”)_ , the sufficiently plastered Bellas began to disperse.

Beca was wandering back into the living room with a tall glass of ice water when she noticed her couch-flipping roommate had disappeared sometime while she was in the kitchen. In fact, the only people left in the room at all were Chloe and Stacie, deeply engrossed in what appeared to be a serious conversation. Also a seriously drunk conversation, judging by their body language.

Social mores out the window in her own state of inebriation, Beca paused for a moment to observe the interaction between her two friends.

Stacie, with her legs crossed toward Chloe, elbow bent atop the backrest of the couch, hand propping up her head as she nodded emphatically along with whatever Chloe was saying.

 

Chloe, with her whole body squared to Stacie, one leg folded across the couch in front of her while the other dangled over the side.

The longer Chloe spoke, the more the girls’ bodies pitched toward one another. In the middle of her animated diatribe, a stray curl escaped from Chloe’s messy bun. Stacie lifted her free hand to tuck the lock of hair behind Chloe’s ear, scooting closer as she did so.

Beca felt a flutter in her stomach at the action. Looking down at the offending feeling and frowning, Beca glanced up to see Stacie reach around to the back of Chloe’s head and tug free the trapped curls. A strange tingling sensation spread across Beca's chest, and then her stomach lurched again. Beca worried this might be that final tequila shot making its presence known, so she left the living room without a word and made her way upstairs.

* * *

(Okay, yeah, so she didn’t know it _back then_ , but _now_ it makes sense that **that** was the start of everything.)

* * *

Beca figures she must have been sober for some of the signs too.

But maybe they happened when she was distracted.

Like when she was half watching Amy’s grand gesture to win over Bumper, half talking to Mrs. Junk on the phone, Beca actually did register the fact that Stacie joined them on the front step. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her leggy friend take a seat behind Chloe, knees to either side of the girl, and wrap her arms around Chloe’s middle before whispering something in her ear. At Chloe’s hum of agreement, a jolt shot through Beca’s chest, followed by a warmth in her abdomen that grew hotter as Stacie planted a full kiss on Chloe’s cheek, then leaned over to sip out of Chloe’s straw. But Mrs. Junk had also just agreed to round up as many Bellas alumni as possible, so Beca chalked up the warm feeling to excitement over Worlds and focused on continuing her phone conversation.

Or maybe they were too subtle to notice.

Like when, in a fleeting glance away from Emily rambling on excitedly about the Bellas signs she made for commencement, she witnessed Chloe grasp Stacie by her honors sash and tug her out of sight around the side of the Bella house. But she figured the butterflies she felt in her stomach were just nervousness over graduating later that day.

Though how she missed the big flashing neon sign, Beca will never know. Even drunkenness couldn’t explain that one.

* * *

Beca sagged her shoulder against the bare wall, bouncing her foot anxiously. The bathroom line was seriously taking forever, and the hallway was getting cramped. She straightened up on her tiptoes to count that there were seven partygoers ahead of her, and the line hadn’t budged for at least five minutes. Having put off breaking the seal for as long as possible, Beca ran the risk of legitimately peeing her pants before reaching her turn. After briefly considering a squat in the bushes, she had a drunken epiphany: there was an upstairs bathroom.

Sure, the entire upstairs was considered ‘Trebles Only’ territory during their house parties. But this Treble party was thrown to pump everyone up for the World Championship.

Plus she was Jesse’s girlfriend. She used that bathroom every non-party Saturday night. Therefore, she must have special ‘girlfriend privileges’ to use that bathroom during a Treble party, especially one on behalf of the Bellas.

She nodded dutifully to herself, pleased that she could reason out such a logical solution to her problem despite her intoxication. She pushed off of the wall and weaved her way back through the throng of people in the living-room-turned-dance-floor, rounded the corner into the front foyer, and grabbed on to the wooden railing. Beca paused for a moment there, peering out over each shoulder to make sure no one was paying her any attention. Satisfied that she had successfully avoided detection, she slowly crept her way up the staircase, one hand skimming along the railing for guidance while the other was held out to the side for balance. As she reached the top few steps, she heard floorboards creak further down the hallway, followed by a gentle thud against the wall.

She was not alone upstairs.

Beca crouched low and pressed herself against the stairwell wall closest to the source of the noise. Head just inches from the thinly carpeted floor, she peeked around the corner and held her breath.

And she was glad she did, because she was wholly unprepared for what she saw.

The first thing she noticed was there was not one person, but two people upstairs. And those two people were engaged in a pretty heavy make-out session, judging by the deep inhales and wanton sighs that drifted down the corridor. A long, buxom figure clad in a high-end sleeveless silk shirt and scandalously short shorts pressed suggestively against a more petite frame donning a navy blue sundress with vibrant teal polka dots. Beca felt a spark in her stomach as she started to slot the pieces together. These two would-be lovers were both **girls**.

The spark ignited to a flame as Beca registered a vague familiarity with the outfits. Lengthy brown locks curtained both faces, but Beca was pretty sure she should be recognizing the thumb ring on the hand clutched into those waves.

Beca knew she shouldn’t keep watching, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away as the pieces of recognition continued to slide and click. She felt the heat from her gut start to crawl up her chest, creeping further with each appreciative sound voiced by the mystery girl in the sundress. Beca wished she wasn’t quite as drunk as she was, because she _knew_ she knew the sound of that voice by the way chills raced through her spine in a stark contrast to the fire singeing the back of her neck. But her booze-addled brain just couldn’t get the final piece of the puzzle to fit.

That was, until the hand with the thumb ring clutched tighter and tugged the curtain aside.

Beca heard a wet pop as lips detached from the soft hollow of a throat, pulling away to reveal extremely familiar red curls. And as the thumb ring redirected full lips to meld with smiling, eager ones, the last piece in Beca’s puzzle locked into place.

This was **Chloe and Stacie**.

And Beca was glad she had been holding her breath when she realized it, because her initial two reactions --first, gasping; then, giggling-- would have given away her unintentional voyeurism had they not been swallowed up by silence.

Beca felt her face go hot.

It’s Chloe. And Stacie. **Making out**.

And once she really knew who she had been watching, she really shouldn’t have kept watching. But her curiosity got the better of her. These were the two most unabashedly flirtatious people she knew, and they were making out… with each other.

Actually, that made more sense than she thought.

The fact that it was a clandestine affair instead of an exhibitionary performance was a little surprising, given how both girls had a love of showmanship. But overall, Beca thought, given how her two friends effortlessly radiated innuendo when sober, this drunken hook-up was probably long overdue.

What didn’t make sense was the way Beca’s body reacted to it.

She understood where the suppressed giggles were coming from, because how funny to see two of your closest friends drunkenly grope one another.

But she didn’t understand why her own heartbeat grew louder the longer she watched.

Why something hot and sharp sliced low through her abdomen every time Chloe hummed with approval.

Why her heart leapt into her throat when Chloe summoned a needy groan from Stacie just by pressing a whisper to the other girl’s ear.

Why it felt like molten liquid had been poured down her spine when Chloe rocked her hips into Stacie’s.

Why she imagined it was her own hips that Chloe was gripping and grinding into.

Beca spun away from the scene so fast she nearly tumbled down the stairs. She scampered halfway down before sitting sideways across a step, forearms crossed on bent knees, head tilted back against the wall. The fact that her breathing was labored as if _she_ was the one who had been making out was yet another thing Beca didn’t understand.

She wasn’t wasted by any means, but she was definitely too drunk for this.

She focused on the beat of the song thumping throughout the house, taking measured breaths until her pulse slowed to normal. She still really needed to get to that upstairs bathroom, but there was no way she was going to subject herself to another round of Chloe and Stacie up against the wall.

After a moment of contemplation, Beca descended to the bottom step. There, she yelled loud enough to be sure her busy friends above could hear.

“Jesse! I’m going to use your bathroom upstairs, okay?”

She knew the music in the living room would drown out her shouting everywhere but upstairs, so the lack of response from her boyfriend was completely expected. She then took her time ascending the stairs with deliberately heavy footfalls, mentally willing the two girls to not be in the hallway once she reached the top. She stalled on the last step, taking a deep inhale to brace herself for the potential scene.

And when she turned, her eyes met a solitary Stacie, leaning casually on the wall inspecting her cuticles.

 

Chloe was nowhere to be found, but the bathroom door was closed where it had been open just moments before.

“This is a Trebles only bathroom,” Beca teased in a mockingly deep voice, her attempt at masking how jittery she actually was.

This elicited a grin and a chuckle as Stacie looked up at her.

“That downstairs bathroom line was ridiculous, we had no choice but to go up here,” Stacie reasoned smoothly.

Beca swallowed down the persistent lump in her throat before responding.

“Who’s ‘we’?” she inquired over the sound of a suspiciously-well-timed flush.

“Oh, just waiting for Chloe,” Stacie explained as the bathroom door cracked open to reveal said girl upon the mention of her name.

Beca felt an all-too-familiar flicker in her stomach as her best friend emerged through the doorway.

“Oh, hey Becs! Wasn’t that bathroom line totes ridiculous?” Chloe beamed, the mega-wattage of her gigantic smile completely betraying her façade. But Chloe didn’t know that Beca knew why they were really up there, so Beca smiled right back, genuinely, because that’s what Chloe Beale did to her.

“Totes.”

* * *

(So maybe the really obvious Chloe-and-Stacie-are-hooking-up neon sign got lost in the looming shadow of oh-shit-Beca-has-feelings-for-Chloe.

But, priorities, right?

Especially since Beca processes feelings through what she calls her ‘fight-and-flight’ mechanism, wherein she actively beats down the thoughts she doesn’t want to have and flees from the situation by choosing to ignore it. But inevitably those feelings catch her when she’s off-guard and deliver a sucker punch right to the gut.

And then, as always does happen, she just runs.

She runs and runs, runs desperately as the feelings nip at her heels. She runs until her heart throbs and her lungs burn and her legs stumble beneath her. It’s when she’s like this, exhausted and broken and gulping for air, that the feelings consume her.

And then she drowns in them.

She sucks them in with heaving breaths, fully expecting to choke and suffocate and die. But they course through her bloodstream like oxygen, revitalizing her from head to toe.

And then she’s finally free.)

* * *

After that night, Beca lived a good solid week of easy denial, successfully swatting away any pesky suggestions that her feelings were anything but status quo. She constantly monitored herself, making sure she gave her normal level of attention to Chloe, because she was most certainly **not** crushing on her best friend. Everything was business as usual with Stacie, too, and since things certainly didn’t seem to be awkward between the two most libidinous Bellas, Beca gladly repressed the idea of Chloe-and-Stacie.

Mostly.

Then came the trip to Copenhagen. Her guard was down a bit, allowing feelings to blend in seamlessly with her nerves from the impending showdown with DSM. Apparently the signs had been everywhere, but she valiantly fought back with as much rationalizing as she could manage.

There was a quick flip of her stomach when Chloe and Stacie spread a blanket over their laps on the plane.

But even though Beca thought the cabin was a comfortable temperature, she also was wearing sensible attire. Her two friends, on the other hand, wore about half the amount of clothes Beca did, so she supposed they might legitimately be cold.

There was a skip of her heartbeat when Chloe and Stacie whizzed down the hall with their luggage cart, Chloe riding among the suitcases, squealing with glee as Stacie pushed them to their shared hotel room.

But Chloe Beale was a certified child, and she was also the only rooming option Stacie had. Because while everyone agreed it made the most sense to share with their daily roommate, that would have left Emily to room with Chloe. And since their combined neuroses were a recipe for a complete meltdown, the group decided that Emily should room with Cynthia Rose, hoping the even-keeled senior could teach the excitable freshman a thing or two about staying calm and collected before a big performance.

There was a twist of her gut when she walked away from yet another confrontation with Kommissar to see Chloe making minute adjustments to Stacie’s vest.

But Beca had just embarrassed herself with complimentary verbal diarrhea _again_ , so her insides were punishing her for it.

There was an undercurrent of something primal and deep when she watched Chloe circle her hips in time with Stacie’s as they danced at the Worlds after-party.

But she was drunk, and she was a world champion, so who cared.

All things considered, Beca came away from her time in Denmark relatively unscathed. Returning stateside riding the thrill of victory, she didn’t feel the need to keep her guard up so high.

So like clockwork, the sucker punch delivered its blow.

* * *

Where the Treble house had a pool in the backyard, the Bella house had a bonfire pit. It was a Friday night, one of the last the 2015 Bellas and Trebles would be able to spend all together before the graduated seniors moved out and moved on to post-Barden life. Beca was seated cross-legged on a cushion a few feet back from the fire, swirling the contents of her near-empty Solo cup. She had a good buzz going and her mind was blissfully blank, zeroed in on the hypnotic spiraling of the dark amber liquid.

Of course that was when someone felt it necessary to clap a hand to her shoulder, sending her relaxed muscles into rigor mortis.

“Shit!” Beca screeched, her voice high and unfamiliar as her drink splashed around, threatening to spill out over the lip of the red plastic cup.

She heard a distinct giggle bubble up somewhere off to her left, but the guilty party standing behind her was none other than a profusely apologetic Benjamin Applebaum.

“O-oh my-- I’m so-- let me help-- sorry, you don’t need it, you’re just… sitting there,” Benji stumbled over his words, a scarlet flush staining his cheeks.

Benji was one of those people that Beca just could never snap at, no matter how on edge she was. Or how unsettled she felt as that strange whoa-I-just-saved-myself-from-falling feeling flooded her body. Beca sighed heavily out her nose, making sure her brain-to-mouth filter was working properly before she spoke.

“It’s okay, Benj. I was just zoned out, that’s all. What’s up?”

He smiled awkwardly, but at least his blush had faded to a less obvious pink.

“Um, I was just wondering if you’d seen Jesse?”

Beca blinked.

She glanced down at the leather cuff on her wrist as if it was actually a watch and realized she hadn’t seen Jesse in probably over an hour. When he arrived to the party, he greeted her with a ‘Be-CAW!’ and a quick one-armed hug on his way to the beer cooler. Then he disappeared inside the Bella house shouting something about an epic karaoke rematch, and she hadn’t heard from him since.

“Uh, actually I haven’t,” she said with a shrug. “Maybe try inside?”

“Inside?” he questioned. “Why not hang by the bonfire with you?”

He made a legitimate point, Beca thought. But it wasn’t as if she had been aware of her boyfriend’s absence until Benji had pointed it out. And quite frankly, she had been quite enjoying her time alone by the warmth of the fire. It was quiet out there, just a handful of people relaxing under the darkening sky in silence. Which, in Beca’s opinion, was a heck of a lot better than--

“--‘Epic karaoke’ or something,” she supplied, successfully withholding an eyeroll, but unable to resist scrunching her fingers into mocking air quotes.

Benji slapped a hand over his eyes, tilting his head back as he dragged his palm down over his face, letting out a frustrated groan.

“Oh. My. God. I can’t believe I forgot!”

As he hustled toward the house, Beca finally released the eyeroll she had been suppressing. Another giggle erupted a few feet to her left, and this time she looked over to acknowledge it.

Chloe.

Of course.

Her best friend was lounging on her stomach atop a thin fleece blanket using her forearms for support, and she grinned at Beca in amusement. Beca chuckled with a wry smile, closing her eyes for a moment as she shook her head.

By the time she opened them again, Chloe’s attention was back to her phone screen. While normally Beca would gladly take this as a cue to return to her pleasant state of solitude, there was something about the way the dancing flames illuminated Chloe’s features that drew Beca in. The closer she studied her, focusing on how the flickering light reflected off the palest blue flecks in Chloe’s eyes, the more she felt her muscles finally relax.

Just as Beca was thinking she should probably look away before Chloe caught her staring, a pair of floral wedge sandals stopped at Chloe’s side.

Beca felt her breath catch.

As Stacie lowered into view, a cavernous pit started to open in Beca’s stomach.

Stacie placed Chloe’s yellow cup on the ground in front of its owner, then placed her own Solo cup down.

The pit grew wider.

The tall girl kneeled, then slid her legs out behind her, sidling up to Chloe with her elbow bent, head slightly cocked as it rested on her palm with an anticipatory smile.

The pit grew deeper.

And Chloe delivered. Bracing with her hands to crane her neck upwards, Chloe aimed an affectionate kiss toward what Beca assumed to be Stacie’s cheek. But then Chloe grazed the corner of Stacie’s mouth in the process. And let her lips linger there.

It caught Beca off-guard.

So without Beca’s mindfulness as its foreman, the pit collapsed.

All the air left Beca’s lungs in an audible whoosh, as if the wind actually had been knocked out of her. But before she could even manage to draw a breath back in, scalding bubbles began to take up residence where the pit used to be.

Beca had to get out of there. To get away from her friends. To get away from this house. To get away from everyone.

To get away from everything. Immediately.

Because even while slightly intoxicated, she recognized the boiling in her stomach for what it was.

_I’m **jealous** of Stacie._

_Because I have **feelings** for Chloe._

_**Shit**._

Once the notion was let loose, the echoes of each word reverberated violently through every crevice of her brain.

Self-preservation kicked in.

Beca chugged what little remained of her beer before pushing up off the ground, a little unsteady as she uncrossed her legs. She briskly walked away from the bonfire, just barely registering Chloe calling out to her, asking where she was going.

“I need another drink,” Beca mumbled.

But she bypassed both the cooler and the keg on her way indoors. She strode through the house and marched straight out the front door without a moment’s hesitation.

Because she _needed_ to get away.

Time to run.

* * *

(Beca’s not sure whether she should be proud or disappointed that she was overtaken by ‘the feelings’ after merely six days of running.

But then after two full days of letting them diffuse through her system like a calming morphine drip, she made a full recovery. And that same night, she determinedly and resolutely set herself free.

Bringing her to this morning.)

* * *

A groggy Beca plodded her way downstairs from her room to the mental mantra of ‘cof-fee cof-fee’ with each sluggish step she took. And at least if her brain was focused on the caffeine it craved, it wasn’t busy over-analyzing any of the multitude of things she was actively trying to **not** think about. Like the life event that shall not be named from roughly nine hours prior.

As she passed by open bedroom doors, she vaguely acknowledged that all the other Bellas already seemed to be out for the day. Frankly, she didn’t really know much about her housemates’ Sunday schedules. Saturday nights were usually spent at Jesse’s, so being home at noon on a Sunday was new territory for Beca. But the lack of their presence was also something she was a tiny bit thankful for. Mostly because she assumed she must look as ragged as she felt. At first she thought she shouldn’t feel so tired, so drained, but considering she didn’t get home until almost four in the morning, and then didn’t finish crying herself to sleep until five thirty-ish… perhaps the heaviness of her eyelids wasn’t unwarranted.

Shuffling in the direction of the living room, Beca picked up on quiet murmuring coming from the vicinity of the kitchen. Her pang of disappointment over not being home alone was quickly replaced by the euphoria that accompanied the divine aroma of brewed coffee, and her step perked along with her mood. As she further approached, she could distinguish that there were at least two voices, but the owners of those voices were unclear and not within her line of sight.

Keeping her thoughts in the present, she played a little guessing game in her head. She was pretty sure neither of the mystery voices were Amy, because, one, her roommate was not home last night, and, two, neither kitchen voice spoke in elaborate run-on sentences. She was also confident that neither voice was Lilly, unless the girl was, like, shouting. But, then again, that also didn’t necessarily _rule out_ the possibility of Lilly being in the kitchen. Beca secretly and selfishly hoped the mystery voices were just Jashley discussing Jashley things so she could give a brief greeting, grab her coffee, and trudge back to her room.

The house grew quiet as the voices ceased their conversation. With every step closer to the kitchen, Beca continued to keep her mind occupied, this time by making up fake statistical probabilities for each housemate’s likelihood of being in the next room.

By the time she placed Flo’s odds at 18%, she finally entered the kitchen.

And froze.

Because throughout her brief moonlighting as an amateur statistician, she never calculated the odds of this combination.

But apparently she should have.

Because the sole occupants of the room were Chloe and Stacie.

And they weren’t speaking anymore.

Because they were making out.

Again.

And Beca couldn’t look away.

Again.

Because Stacie was gracefully perched on one of the kitchen stools, her back leaning against the center island for stability. Despite the limited real estate, Chloe was fully gathered onto Stacie’s lap, legs dangling freely in a lazy straddle. Lips sliding over and over, never losing contact, Chloe’s hands pulled Stacie’s face impossibly closer, and Beca could feel something heavy sink low into her gut. She watched breathlessly as Chloe’s hands slipped from Stacie’s cheeks into her hair, raking her fingers through tousled strands that had already appeared disheveled beyond typical bedhead.

Chloe’s actions prompted Stacie into moving her own hands from resting modestly on Chloe’s hips to teasing the lower hem of Chloe’s ridiculously indecent pajama shorts, and Beca clenched involuntarily when Stacie then groped at the flesh of Chloe’s flannel-clad rear. The action must have had a similar effect on Chloe because the girl was now full-on **grinding** into the younger Bella. Stacie expertly shifted her leg to accommodate the motion, her oversized sleep shirt riding up to reveal even more lean muscle in the process. Aided by Stacie’s firm grasp on her behind, Chloe dragged her center across the bared thigh, detaching her lips from Stacie’s to let out a needy groan of approval.

The guttural sound drew an even stronger clench, followed by a steady, lingering pulsing, and Beca pressed her legs together awkwardly in an attempt to diminish the unsettling sensation.

Chloe gripped at Stacie’s shoulders, panting as she rode a little faster, a little more insistently with each pass. Beca felt her own breaths shorten with every movement.

Which was crazy, because this time Beca was **sober** , yet she still found herself unable to look away. This fleetingly reminded her that _Chloe and Stacie_ were sober too. Yet there they were, shamelessly getting down in the kitchen.

And it was **hot**.

Beca’s heart was racing, her breathing was shallow, her core was throbbing, and _dear god_ she just wanted to get some damn coffee, not walk in on her insanely attractive friends doing things with each other that were making Beca -- _holy shit_ \-- legitimately **turned on**.

Chloe’s lips reattached at Stacie’s pulse point, sucking hard, the blatant sound of it carrying easily to where Beca was standing, trembling. Caught in limbo, Beca didn’t dare move. But she didn’t dare **not** move either. Then Stacie’s hands finally released from their position over Chloe’s shorts… only to skim around her sides and up her front to pry loose the first button of Chloe’s pajama top.

The throbbing in Beca’s core made its way up to her ears, thumping louder with each unfastened button. By the time the girl had worked the plaid flannel half open, exposing a trail of fairly fresh hickies _and no bra_ , Beca had just about lost herself.

And that **couldn’t** happen.

Beca vigorously shook her head as if it would actually clear the fog from her mind, and although the action was largely ineffective, it did finally spur her into motion.

She stiffly navigated around the center island toward the coffee maker, the visual of Chloe and Stacie still lurking in her periphery. She noisily rifled through the cupboard above the machine even though her travel mug was front and center, and it did just the trick.

“Jesus shit! God… damn... why won’t this shirt-- son of a _bitch_ …”

Beca had to suppress a snicker at Chloe’s startled series of expletives as she simultaneously tried to slap Stacie’s hands away and tug her shirt closed. Apparently Stacie had no such qualms, and the sound of her melodious laughter stirred something within Beca.

“Chill, dude, I’ve seen more of you than that.” Beca forced calmness into her voice as she poured some coffee into her travel mug, choosing to mask her true reaction to the situation with a heavy dose of humor like she always does.

“I kn-- wait, you just-- I, we… oh, fuck me,” Chloe ended with a huff of frustration.

“Was that not where that was headed?” Beca quipped a little too loudly as she continued to cover for herself. Which also meant she didn’t quite catch the muttered “Was trying to” Stacie had teased the squirming girl atop her lap with.

Chloe’s eyes grew large as she reprimanded Stacie with a light slap to the arm. Beca looked over her shoulder at the noise only to get caught up in Chloe’s intense blue eyes. The girl’s mouth opened as if she wanted to say something, but after the silence stretched on longer than Beca was comfortable with, she just nodded her head toward her two friends before reaching for the sugar bowl.

“You two carry on,” she said, dumping a heaping mound of white crystals into the steaming liquid, “I was just getting some coffee.” She circled the sugar spoon in the air between scoops to emphasize, “In the kitchen,” then added another spoonful, “where people do kitchen things.” She gave the hot beverage a quick stir, “Like get coffee,” she tapped the excess liquid from the spoon onto a napkin on the counter, “and eat food.” She screwed on the lid and turned around, using her closed mug to point at the kitchen island. “And have sex on the countertop,” she finished with a raised eyebrow. “You know, normal kitchen stuff.”

Chloe’s wide-eyed expression grew even more comical at the unexpected left turn in Beca’s statement. But Stacie was all over that detour.

“Whoa hold up, I have actually _not_ had sex on this counter yet.”

“So not the point right now, Stace!” Chloe hissed, glaring at the younger girl as she slapped her arm again. Then Chloe sighed, ducking her head reproachfully as her eyes found Beca’s once again. “Look, Beca, can we just--”

“--Say no more, I saw nothing,” Beca cut off, making to exit the kitchen until Chloe’s words halted her.

“No, Becs, wait. That’s not what we’re asking.”

Beca felt her heart start to soar in her chest at the familiar nickname, only to sputter out and plummet at Chloe’s use of the word ‘we’.

“Let’s just… talk for minute. About what just happened. About what you saw. Please?”

Beca wanted to let the simmering jealousy in the pit of her stomach frame her response, maybe with a sharp ‘there’s nothing to talk about’ or a bitter ‘you seemed fine with not talking a minute ago’. But who was she to lash out at a doe-eyed, pleading Chloe Beale? Plus, it’s not like either of her friends had any reason to suspect that Beca would be jealous in the first place.

So instead, she just shrugged her acquiescence, indicating with an elevated palm for Chloe to continue.

“Right. So. Stacie and I have…” Chloe twisted the ring on her thumb as she searched for the words, “...an arrangement.”

“Okay…” Beca dragged out the vowel, being purposefully dense. Chloe wasn’t getting out of this one easily; Beca was going to make her spit out every single word.

“Like… the kind where you’re friends-- good friends,” Chloe quickly amended with a quirk of her lips toward Stacie. “And there’s benefits…”

“Good benefits,” Stacie added with a salacious wink, spreading a rosy pink across Chloe’s cheekbones.

Beca felt the back of her neck prickle at Stacie’s comment, her mind replaying the scene of Chloe sliding up and down Stacie’s leg and--

“--Okay, so friends with benefits, got it.” And then ever the glutton for punishment, she had to ask, “How long?”

Chloe twisted her thumb ring again. “Umm, a couple months.”

“A couple _months_?” Beca repeated incredulously. “Like, as in, since before Worlds a couple months?”

“...Yes,” Chloe answered slowly.

Beca ran a hand partway through her hair as a huff of indignance escaped from her throat. Fingernails clutching her own scalp, hair woven between each finger, Beca’s voice rose in both pitch and volume with every subsequential word.

“So you two have been together, like seriously legit together, since befo--”

“--O-kay!” Stacie interjected loudly, effectively stopping Beca’s rant before it could really get started. “At ease, Captain, it’s nothing super serious,” she placated, lowering outstretched palms in a settle-down motion.

Then just as Beca’s emotions began to level out, Stacie aimed a smirk up at the girl still sitting astride her lap.

“But we are both pretty into it.”

Chloe’s blush spread visibly down to her chest, but the fond look in her bright blue eyes confirmed her agreement with Stacie’s declaration. It was almost too much for Beca.

“I’m not-- I just… how?” she floundered.

“Did this happen, you mean?” Stacie questioned with a furrowed brow and a flick of her eyes to Chloe’s.

Beca nodded mutely.

Somewhere in that wordless exchange, it was agreed that Chloe would start. “Well, Stacie and I were chatting the night after the retreat. You remember, Becs, that game night with the tequila and the couch flipping?”

“Uh, yeah,” Beca squeezed out.

“Anyway, we were having a drunken heart-to-heart, talking about Barden and graduating and stuff…” Chloe trailed off, looking to Stacie to pick up the rest.

“And then Chloe told me she regretted not experimenting more in college.”

Wait.

“So I told her ‘no regrets’,” Stacie shrugged before grinning through the second half of her statement. “And grabbed her by both cheeks and started… ‘experimenting’.”

**Wait**.

Beca heard Chloe giggle at the memory and saw Stacie look up at her, grin splitting wider. Beca’s stomach turned a somersault as her friends shared a smile meant just for the two of them. It looked natural and easy and intimate, like something they’d done a thousand times before. Beca could feel the tips of her ears growing hot as she thought about the fact that they probably **have**.

Her muscles tensed and set her on edge. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was somehow intruding on a private moment. But something else was also nagging, a sort of déjà vu working its way to the surface.

“At the time I figured ‘experimenting’ with Stacie would be that one drunken kiss that one night, but something just felt… good.”

**WAIT**.

Beca was trying to process Chloe’s words, she really was, but their sound was muffled by the dull roar taking over the space between Beca’s ears.

“So we decided to have fun and see what happened.”

Stacie’s words barely registered. The roar was getting louder, not unlike a felled tree making its untimely descent toward the ground.

“And even though we’re not, like, 100% serious, it’s not just 100% for fun anymore, either.”

But Beca didn’t even know who was speaking anymore. She couldn’t listen, couldn’t hear because the roar of realization was so deafening, it drowned out everything else but a single, and now monumental, memory.

That night in the tent, Chloe hadn’t meant experimenting _in general_ , like Beca had naïvely thought she had.

Not even close. But she knew now. What Chloe really had wished.

That she’d done more experimenting… _with Beca_.

**Beca**.

She had wanted to _**experiment** with Be_ \--

“--ca? You okay? Is something wrong?”

Chloe’s voice broke through, and Beca blinked, attempting to recover from her temporary paralysis.

“I… uh, I…”

But her mouth needed a little more prodding.

“Becs?”

Beca snapped her head toward the sound of Chloe’s soft inquiry, voice dripping with concern. She had to clamp her mouth shut to keep the thundering words in her brain at bay.

_I have feelings for you, Chlo_.

She inhaled deeply as she shoved the confession aside, opting instead to share the other major development in her life.

“I… I broke up with Jesse. Last night.”

The last word was barely out of her mouth when she was surrounded by a blur of red hair. Chloe’s entire form pressed tightly against her, wrapping strong arms around Beca’s waist, hands clasped at her lower back.

“Oh, Beca…”

A second body molded to her back, gentle fingers starting to rub soothing circles at the tops her shoulders.

And as Stacie nestled her cheek into the crook of Beca’s neck, Chloe gave comforting squeeze, and all Beca’s previous thoughts faded away.

* * *

Which brings her to where she is now, still sprawled out across her bed, coffee growing cold as she releases all the pent up emotions of the past several hours. Warring thoughts swirl through her head and rage through her gut like a sentient storm hell-bent on total destruction, and her only solace from it all is the grounding reminder that breaking up with Jesse was the right thing to do. They had been falling out of love for a while, Beca realizes now, and it wasn’t fair to either of them to keep pretending they were something they weren’t.

But even when it’s the right thing to do, a break-up still **hurts**.

Three years of her life entwined with his, and now… nothing. Just a void, an emptiness, that somehow, for some reason, hurts.

Yet she’s not sure which hurts more: that her once solid relationship with Jesse has officially crumbled into nothingness, or that she can’t even celebrate her newfound freedom the way she’d hoped because now it’s _Chloe_ who’s unavailable.

No, she didn’t break up with Jesse _for_ Chloe, or even really _because of_ Chloe. Beca and Jesse just hadn’t been working, plain and simple. But discovering her feelings for Chloe certainly helped solidify the decision.

It’s only been hours since the break-up, and Beca is already over the accompanying hollowness. She wants that space filled, and she keeps coming back to that whole ‘experimenting’ epiphany. The idea that **maybe** , at some point, Chloe actually _wanted her_ gnaws at the back of her brain, methodically consuming every other whirling thought until it becomes the only thing she can think about.

She **has** to know if Chloe meant her.

And there's only one way to find out.

* * *

It takes Beca a few hours to finally gather the courage, but when she does, she finds herself ushered into Chloe’s bedroom with a sympathetic pouty face from her best friend.

It’s adorable, but it’s not what she needs right now, and it’s not what she’s here for.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Beca grumbles.

“Looking at you like what?”

“Like my world just ended. Cuz it didn’t. I’m fine.”

“You know, usually when people say ‘I’m fine’ they really mean--”

“--Chloe, no, seriously.” Beca’s voice is strong and sure. “I mean it. I’m fine.”

“Okay then. I believe you,” Chloe says, her tone sincere. “Do you wanna talk about it though?”

“Not really.” Beca truly appreciates that Chloe wants to be there for her, she really does, but… “That’s actually not what I’m here for.”

Chloe raises her eyebrows and nods, encouraging Beca to keep going.

“It’s just, something Stacie said downstairs got me thinking.”

“Downstairs when?”

Beca gives Chloe a hard look.

“Oh. Right.”

“Anyways, she mentioned that you two are doing… whatever it is that you’re doing… because you wanted to experiment.”

At Chloe’s slight nod, Beca continues.

“Which reminded me…”

Chloe shifts her weight restlessly.

“...that you said something similar to me. On the retreat. In the tent.”

And now Chloe won’t make eye contact anymore.

“You told me one of your biggest regrets was not experimenting more in college.”

Chloe nods again, but still won’t meet Beca’s eyes.

“But that wasn’t the full truth, was it.”

Chloe’s eyes close, but she still nods her affirmation.

“Chloe.” Beca repeats the girl’s name with more fervor when she gets no response. “ _Chloe_.”

Chloe forces her eyes up to Beca’s, and Beca can see her struggling to keep her gaze there.

“You meant me, didn’t you.”

Silence.

“You wanted to experiment with me.”

More silence.

“Right?”

She can see Chloe’s throat bob as she swallows, and then…

“Yes.”

Finally, the answer Beca had been looking for.

And now that it’s out in the open, Beca lets out a self-deprecating laugh. “I guess I can be pretty obtuse sometimes, huh.”

“No, Beca, you’re not obtuse,” Chloe reassures. “I wasn’t exactly direct about what I wanted.”

“Probably a first,” Beca jokes, watching some of the tension leave Chloe’s features at the good-natured ribbing.

“Probably,” Chloe agrees with a small smile. “But if I had, I’d have been a pretty terrible friend.”

Beca finds she really likes Chloe’s smile, so she keeps with the humor. “No way, dude,” she says with a grin of her own, “It’s like, statistically impossible for anyone named Chloe Beale to be a terrible friend.” Chloe’s lips twitch further up at the declaration, but Beca can tell that the girl isn’t quite ready for them to laugh this one off. So she adds, “If anything, **I** was the one who was a terrible friend back then, stressing out about everything all the time.”

“And that was half the reason I’d have been a terrible friend if I told you.”

Beca isn’t following Chloe’s logic, and she must be wearing a puzzled expression since Chloe explains further without prompting.

“On top of the stress of your internship and your demo and graduation and Worlds,” she rattles off, “you didn’t need the added stress of knowing your best friend has feelings for you.”

Beca nods slowly, trying to absorb each word of Chloe’s rationale. As their meanings sink in one by one, she finds herself asking, “And the other half?”

“Other half of what?” Chloe’s nose wrinkles in confusion.

“You said ‘that was half the reason’,” Beca clarifies. “So what was the other half?”

Chloe looks down at her feet and shrugs, offering simply, “You were with Jesse.”

“And now I’m not,” Beca counters, just as plainly.

And at that moment, the full impact of her best friend’s slipped confession hits Beca with all the finesse of a sledgehammer.

Chloe said ‘ **has** ’.

Her heart jumps in her chest at the possibility. She doesn’t know where the confidence comes from, but she has to ask.

“Chloe,” Beca starts, fighting to keep her voice steady while her heart rattles around her ribcage. “Do you still have feelings for me?”

Chloe’s eyes flick up briefly at Beca before returning downward, fixating on the thumb ring she’s twisting. Beca knows it’s one of her nervous habits, so she gives Chloe the time she needs to formulate her response.

“I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t.”

Beca’s turn.

“And I’d be lying if I said you weren’t part of the reason I finally broke up with Jesse.”

She sees Chloe’s spine straighten, but the girl doesn’t lift her head.

Time to lay it all out there.

“I broke up with Jesse because we had stopped working as a couple. But some of that, on my end at least, was because I realized I liked someone else.”

Chloe still isn’t looking, so Beca puts it as bluntly as she can.

“You, Chloe.” At the mention of her name, she finally meets Beca’s gaze head on. “I like _you_.”

Beca can see something swimming in the oceans of blue staring back at her, and as much as she wants her confession to be all there is to it, there’s something she has to know.

“But you also like Stacie, don’t you.”

Beca’s forwardness takes Chloe by surprise. Her mouth opens and closes, fishing for the right words before finally settling on, “That’s kind of complicated.”

A quick bark of disbelief escapes from the back of Beca’s throat. “It’s kind of not, Chlo,” she points out. “Either you do or you don’t.”

Chloe’s eyes scan the ceiling as she inhales deeply through her nose. She leans her hip against the bedpost and crosses her arms, exhaling evenly from her mouth. Once all the air is pushed out of her lungs she looks back to Beca, taking a normal breath before speaking.

“Well,” she begins, “when I started whatever this is with her, I was sure it was a one time thing.” She dips her chin slightly to look up at Beca through long eyelashes. “Because wanting you was it for me.”

Beca can’t handle the intense blue of Chloe’s eyes, so this time she’s the one to look down at her hands, suddenly fascinated by the way her forefinger picks at chipped black polish on the opposite thumb.

“That night after the retreat, I was still beating myself up over what I said to you in the tent.”

A tight coil forms in Beca’s stomach at the memory.

“So to make myself feel better, to make it seem like it was an off-hand comment I could’ve made to anyone, I said it to Stacie. And you know what happened after that.”

And twists into a knot.

“But then the next time we all got wasted as a group-- actually, you were at Jesse’s that night, I think.”

The knot quickly unravels.

“Anyways, one minute we were drunkenly praising each other’s kissing technique, and the next minute we were making out again.”

It stretches.

“Then it started happening when we were less drunk.”

And tenses.

“Then I realized after the first time we hooked up totally sober that ‘experimenting’ probably wasn’t the right word for it anymore.”

And snaps.

“Right,” Beca interjects, not wanting or needing to hear any more explanation from Chloe. She tries to keep her tone even, but can’t help the little bit of irritation that slips in. “So all I’m getting here is that you basically ended up in a relationship with her while you still had feelings for me.”

“Beca, that’s not--”

And before Chloe can get in another word, Beca hears herself blurting, “--Have you slept with her?”

Chloe’s eyebrows raise, but not unkindly. “It’s not really any of your business, Becs,” she reminds gently, staying calm in the face of a potentially stormy Beca. “But yes.”

Beca expects to feel a white hot slice of jealousy, so much so that she actually holds her breath waiting for it. But it never comes. Inexplicably, she feels her confidence surging, so she removes all pretense of having a filter.

“More than once?”

“ **Beca**.” _Now_ Chloe’s tone hardens a bit around the edges, but it only spurs Beca on.

“Right, right, not my business,” she apologizes, putting her hands up briefly as if surrendering.

But she’s not.

“So you have feelings for her and you’ve slept with her multiple times--”

“- _ **Beca**_ -” Chloe tries to interrupt, but Beca plows right through.

“--but if I remember correctly, you and Stacie are, and I quote, ‘nothing super serious’. Got it.”

“Beca…” Chloe sighs, closing her eyes for a moment and pinching the bridge of her nose, as exasperated with her best friend’s sarcasm as ever.

But Beca senses an upper hand here, so she keeps pushing.

“So which is it, Chloe? Do you have something ‘super serious’ with Stacie? Or is it nothing?”

“It’s really not super serious,” Chloe insists, yet her voice trails off as if there’s a ‘but’ that’s going to follow.

So Beca waits for it.

And Chloe delivers.

“But Beca…”

There it is.

“...what Stacie and I have…”

Beca braces herself.

“...it’s not nothing.”

Oh. Well this is easy.

“So you’re saying it’s something,” Beca supplies.

“It’s…” Chloe starts and falters, jaw hanging open uselessly. After a moment, she purses her lips, smoothing them over one another before averting her eyes and nodding her head.

The confirmation doesn’t sting as badly as she thought it would.

“And what about us?” Beca continues, “You and me together... would we have been something?”

She’s met with a nervous silence.

“Or at least not nothing?” she presses on, not caring that a hint of desperation has managed to infiltrate the confidence in her voice.

This time Chloe’s whole head turns away, eyes blinking rapidly. Her reply sounds broken, even as a whisper.

“We would have been everything.”

Beca takes three cautious steps to close the distance between Chloe and herself. She reaches up to cup Chloe’s cheek, gently squaring the girl’s head toward hers. Chloe allows the motion, but refuses to meet Beca’s eyes, instead staring unfocused at a point in the distance just beyond Beca’s left ear.

“Chlo,” Beca tries. “Chloe, look at me.”

She sees conflicting emotions flash across Chloe’s features before they harden slightly. Chloe locks her gaze determinedly onto Beca, but Beca can see the watery vulnerability hiding behind the thin steel. Can see how she’s trying not to look like her entire existence hinges on Beca’s next words. So Beca chooses them carefully.

“We still could be.”

Then Beca surprises even herself when she follows her earnest declaration with a solid press of her lips to Chloe’s. They’re even smoother, even warmer than Chloe’s cheek under the caress of her fingertips. She can tell Chloe’s not breathing, and she might not be either, but she forces her mouth into action and slowly moves her lips. Not asking anything of Chloe, just channeling the feelings she can’t convey in words through her kiss.

Relief washes over her as she feels Chloe respond with a similarly meaningful pressure. For just a few infinite moments, their lips dance softly together, and Beca understands, in that fraction of time, how nirvana must feel. Then Chloe’s tongue flits out to suck Beca’s bottom lip more fully into her mouth, faintly raking her teeth across it as she pulls away from the kiss.

Beca drops her hands and opens her eyes, her lips now tasting of vanilla peppermint. Her face still hovers close to Chloe’s as she tries to read the girl’s reaction.

Chloe draws in a breath as shaky as her body, but doesn’t open her eyes. Beca doesn’t dwell upon this. She’s made her case, and the rest is up to Chloe.

So Beca takes a silent step backwards, giving Chloe a final once-over before padding her way to the door. But before crossing the threshold, she can’t help herself and takes one last glance over her shoulder.

Chloe’s eyes are still closed, each inhale just as ragged and uneven as the last, and Beca allows herself to believe that maybe, just maybe, she has a chance. Still, she begs a quiet final plea as she exits the room.

 **  
** “Think about it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo... anyone joining me aboard the Good Crackship Chacie? Anyone? And what exactly was this, anyway?
> 
> All I can say is I didn't actually plan on writing this, or any fic, really. I was just jumping around writing little bits and pieces of ideas as I avoided my end of quarter grading, and somehow those choppy little scenes turned into nearly 9k of actual plot. So hopefully the final product came across as more cohesive than the writing process because oops, my finger slipped and wrote a fic. My bad.
> 
> Anyways, I'd say hit me up on tumblr, but I don't have one, so... til next time, whenever that may be!


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